Villa Heriot, Venice

Since the early 20th Century, many wealthy foreigners have chosen to make their second home in Venice, often using land occupied by abandoned buildings of previous centuries: this is the case of Herriot, who having purchased the land of a former soap factory on the Giudecca Island, built two grandiose houses with fancy tiles, columns and other byzantine decorations. Herriot's wife gave the complex to the municipality, with the wish that they use it as a public school, after the death of her husband in 1947. Currently, however, the school closed and Heriott Villa became the seat of the House of Memory of the Venetian 20th Century.